Show Review: Giants Among Men

Saturday evening I headed to the Trocadero to catch my friend Tony DeFranco's band Giants Among Men playing the balcony stage at Exposure Festival. After opening with an instrumental introduction, their call-and-response vocal style made them stand out from the pack of bands performing that day, with all three members singing and guitarist Kieran Lisney and drummer Tony's screaming. Limited to a short set, a guitar amp malfunction during their second song forced them to cut the last one on their list, despite admirable riffing by bass player Alex Good and Tony's energetic drum solo while waiting for the amp situation to be resolved. The mishap, however, highlighted the group's remarkable cohesion, as they remained professional and even played a song finished the night before. Here's a video of them performing "Shotgun For Future References" at the show:

Other bands featured at the festival varied in both talent and interest, one standout I saw being all-girl hardcore band Tearher. I wasn't there for the entirety of the event, and did a lot of wandering around and talking during the shows, so I can't properly describe most of the other sets I heard, which included old-school metal and punk acts, pop-punk, hardcore, and screamo of various stripes. Winners of the battle of the bands (prize being 20 hours of studio time) run by concertsfirst.com were Axis (one of the aforementioned old-school metal bands, this one with a much older-looking singer/guitarist) and Bullets & Belvedere (one of the screamo bands that I didn't see, who have a cover of "I Like To Move It" on their myspace).